“Poetical Economy”

What hours I spent of precious time,
What pints of ink I used to waste,
Attempting to secure a rhyme
To suit the public taste,
Until I found a simple plan
Which makes the lamest lyric scan!

When I’ve a syllable de trop,
I cut it off without apol.
This verbal sacrifice, I know,
May irritate the schol.
But all must praise my dev’lish cunn.
Who realize that time is mon.

My sense remains as clear as cryst.,
My style as pure as any duch.
Who does not boast a bar sinist.
Upon her fam. escutch.,
And I can treat with scornful pit.
The sneers of ev’ry captious crit.

I gladly publish to the pop.
A scheme of which I make no myst.,
And beg my fellow scribes to cop.
This labor-saving syst.
I offer it to the consid.
Of ev’ry thoughtful individ.

The author, working like a beav.,
His readers’ pleasure could redoub.,
Did he but now and then abbrev.
The works he gives his pub.,
Did Upton Sinc. or Edith Whart.
Curtail their output by a quart.

If Mr. Caine rewrote “The Scape.”,
And Miss Corell. condensed “Barabb.”,
What could they save in foolscap pape.
Did they but cultivate the hab.
Which teaches people to suppress
All syllables that are unnec.!

If playwrights would but thus dimin.
The length of time each drama takes
(“The Second Mrs. Tanq.” by Pin.
Or even “Ham.” by Shakes.),
We could maintain a wakeful att.
When at a mat. on Wed. or Sat.

Foll. my examp., O Maurice Hewl.
When next you cater for the mill.;
You, too, immortal Mr. Dool.
And Ella Wheeler Wil.;
And share with me the grave respons.
Of writing this amazing nons.!

— Harry Graham, in Life, December 1909

Attenuated Language

What’s the longest “narrow” word — the longest word whose handwritten letters keep tidily to the middle of the line?

Dmitri Borgmann considered this question in 1965 and came up with overnervousnesses and overnumerousnesses — 17 and 18 letters.

In 1973 Darryl Francis sought the opposite — “tall” words made up entirely of letters that ascend above the mean line or descend below it. He discovered if, hip, glib, lipid, highly, fifthly, filthify, flightily, and lillypilly.

“I must tell you that my wife has a theory that only thin people can talk English well,” Bismarck told journalist Henri de Blowitz in 1878. “According to this, neither you nor I will make our mark in that language.”

The Right Word

Useful German:

  • Feierabend: a festive frame of mind at the end of a working day
  • Drachenfutter: (“dragon fodder”) a peace offering to a wife from a guilty husband
  • Fachmensch: a narrow specialist
  • Fingerspitzengefühl: (“fingertipfeel”) intuitive sensibility, confident sureness of touch
  • fisselig: nagged and flustered to the point of incompetence
  • pomadig: “like hair oil,” able to slip through difficulties
  • Verschlimmbesserung: an intended improvement that has made things worse
  • Stammplatz: a favorite usual spot, as a table at a café
  • Zivilcourage: courage to stand up for what is right
  • Zwischenraum: the space between things

The contraceptive pill is the Antibabypille. “I can understand German as well as the maniac that invented it,” wrote Mark Twain, “but I talk it best through an interpreter.”

Menu Trouble

Charles Ollier observed that GHOTI can be pronounced “fish”:

  • GH as in laugh
  • O as in women
  • TI as in nation

Melville Dewey, who devised the Dewey Decimal System, suggested that GHEAUGHTEIGHPTOUGH spells “potato”:

  • GH as in hiccough
  • EAU as in beau
  • GHT as in naught
  • EIGH as in neigh
  • PT as in pterodactyl
  • OUGH as in though

This sort of thing can get out of hand quickly. In his 1845 Plea for Phonotypy and Phonography, Alexander John Ellis offered SCHIESOURRHCE for “scissors,” GNUITHEIERRH for “neither,” PHAIGHPHEAWRAIBT for “favorite,” PSOURRPHUAKNTW for “servant,” and (fittingly) EOLOTTHOWGHRHOIGHUAY for “orthography.”

GHOTI might even be silent:

  • GH as in though
  • O as in people
  • T as in ballet
  • I as in business

Other languages, it seems, have simply surrendered — the Klingon word for fish is ghotI.

In a Word

hypnobate
n. a sleepwalker

In Fain v. Commonwealth, 78 Ky. 183, the defendant, a somnambulist, had gone to sleep in a public room in a hotel, and on being roughly awakened by a stranger, drew a pistol and killed him, imagining himself in danger. The court observed: ‘If the prisoner is and has been afflicted in the manner claimed and knew, as he no doubt did, his propensity to do acts of violence when aroused from sleep, he was guilty of a grave breach of social duty in going to sleep in the public room of a hotel with a deadly weapon on his person, and merits for that reckless disregard of the safety of others some degree of punishment, but we know of no law under which he can be punished. Our law only punishes for overt acts done by responsible moral agents. If the prisoner was unconscious when he killed the deceased, he cannot be punished for that act, and as the mere fact that he had the weapon on his person and went to sleep with it there did no injury to any one, he cannot be punished for that.’ Now, is a man who knows himself liable to violent attacks of insanity guilty of ‘a grave breach of social duty’ in not incarcerating himself in an insane asylum?

Albany Law Journal, July 8, 1882

“A Tragic Calendar”

JANet was quite ill one day.
FEBrile troubles came her way.
MARtyr-like she lay in bed;
APRoned nurses softly sped.
“MAYbe,” said the leech judicial,
“JUNket would be beneficial.”
JULeps, too, though freely tried,
AUGured ill, for Janet died.
SEPulcher was sadly made;
OCTaves pealed and prayers were said.
NOVices with many a tear
DECorated Janet’s bier.

— Carolyn Wells, Folly for the Wise, 1904

The Less Said

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wenceslas_Hollar_-_Warship_in_the_trough_of_a_wave_(State_1).jpg

What’s the most comprehensive contraction? Philip Cohen proposes this story:

An old salt was telling of going through a typhoon in his sailing ship. At the top of the storm, he said, ‘M’ jibs’l’s lines snapped. And m’t’g’ll’nts’ls’d’a done the same if it hadn’t slacked off just then.’

M’t’g’ll’nts’ls’d’a means “my topgallant sails would have” — a savings of 14 letters and four spaces using seven apostrophes. An old sailor knows the value of efficiency.

Product Placement

Each team in the Philippine Basketball Association is owned by a corporation. This makes for some colorful team names:

  • The Powerade Tigers
  • The Rain or Shine Elasto Painters
  • The Shopinas.com Clickers
  • The Talk ‘N Text Tropang Texters
  • The Alaska Aces
  • The Barangay Ginebra Kings
  • The Barako Bull Energy
  • The B-Meg Llamados
  • The Meralco Bolts
  • The Petron Blaze Boosters

Defunct teams include the Toyota Super Corollas, the Sta. Lucia Realtors, the Shell Turbo Chargers, the Pop Cola Panthers, and the Great Taste Coffee Makers. Between 1980 and 1986, the national team was called Northern Consolidated Cement.

(Thanks, Ethan.)

So There

One also can’t help mentioning in this context the nineteenth century American novelist who inspired irreverent punsters to announce that they were going to Helen Hunt Jackson’s grave. Typical of the Helen Hunt anecdotes in oral circulation is the one about Mrs. Jackson who, while still Hunt, is said to have once found a money purse in a church pew after the morning’s service. The preacher, when she informed him of it, advised her to hold on to it and that he’d announce it at the evening’s service. That night, he addressed the congregation to the effect that a money purse had been found in the church and that the owner can go to Helen Hunt for it. The preacher, we are told, was met with a tittering response from his congregation.

— Robert M. Rennick, “Obscene Names and Naming in Folk Tradition,” in Names and Their Varieties, 1986